Shocker: Americans want term limits and end to Electoral College after re-electing a bunch of incumbents

posted at 12:01 pm on January 18, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

Later today, when I’m hosting the Ed Morrissey Show, you’ll probably notice a deep red welt on my forehead and wonder how it got there. It’s from banging my head on my desk repeatedly after reading the results of two polls released today. The first comes from Gallup, where overwhelming majorities of Americans of every party affiliation demand Congressional term limits and an end to the Electoral College … just two months after re-elected almost every incumbent than ran for federal office:

Even after the 2012 election in which Americans re-elected most of the sitting members of the U.S. House and Senate — as is typical in national elections — three-quarters of Americans say that, given the opportunity, they would vote “for” term limits for members of both houses of Congress.

Republicans and independents are slightly more likely than Democrats to favor term limits; nevertheless, the vast majority of all party groups agree on the issue. Further, Gallup finds no generational differences in support for the proposal.

In other words, the message here is: Stop me before I vote for another incumbent! I’m no fan of term limits in Congressional elections, after my experience in seeing the application in California do nothing but make the dysfunction there arguably worse, and certainly no better. (The limit on presidential terms is more necessary, thanks to the power that has accrued to the executive branch over the last several decades.) The best solution is to vote out the incumbents one dislikes, by finding better candidates to oppose them.

On the Electoral College, the numbers are lower but still majorities:

Americans are nearly as open to major electoral reform when it comes to doing away with the Electoral College. Sixty-three percent would abolish this unique, but sometimes controversial, mechanism for electing presidents that was devised by the framers of the Constitution. While constitutional and statutory revisions have been made to the Electoral College since the nation’s founding, numerous efforts to abolish it over the last 200+ years have met with little success.

There is even less partisan variation in support for this proposal than there is for term limits, with between 61% and 66% of all major party groups saying they would vote to do away with the Electoral College if they could. Similarly, between 60% and 69% of all major age groups take this position.

This has been a relatively stable level for at least since the 2000 election, but it’s based on almost nothing else. What exactly is the problem with forcing a state-by-state approach that has worked well, with two (possible) exceptions, every four years since 1792? It allows states to have some influence on federal government, especially lower-population states that would otherwise get overwhelmed by the large coastal states in national elections. If they were this dissatisfied with the results the last time, why did they bother to re-elect the man who won the presidential election in that cycle?

We can ask the same question after reading the new poll at The Hill, too. In the survey, 42% say they are worse off than when Obama took office, with only 26% believing that life has improved — and they’re not expecting things to get better in the next four years, either:

President Obama is entering his second term with many of the nation’s voters still pessimistic or unsure about their economic prospects, a new poll for The Hill has found.

The president was reelected for another four years by a relatively comfortable margin, but 39 percent of likely voters say his first four years were worse than expected, compared to just 18 percent who say he exceeded expectations. Forty-one percent of those polled said his first term went as expected.

The president assumed office in the midst of one of the worst financial meltdowns in U.S. history, and those polled are still feeling the ensuing recession’s impact four years later. On the economic front, 42 percent say they are worse off now than when Obama first took office, compared to 26 percent who say they are better off.

Respondents are not significantly more optimistic about the next four years, either.

Sixty percent say they do not expect to make major economic strides during Obama’s second term, compared to just 38 percent who expect to be better off in 2016.

So why did Obama get re-elected? More people blame Congress than Obama for their problems … even though Americans re-elected the exact same leadership on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

And now you’ll know why I’ll have a big, red welt in the middle of my forehead this afternoon.

Blowback

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Obama and the congress should all live under Obama’care’…zero exceptions.

The first political critter who makes exceptions should spontaneously combust, for hypocrisy alone.

The majority of the US people are now harlots on the dole. Even many of the R-registered cops and firemen voted for Obama and his ilk. Those fat pentions and bennies are way better thant heir country and the future of their kids.

you’ll probably notice a deep red welt on my forehead and wonder how it got there

Let me help Ed:

“well, yeah I voted for Obama, and the same guy who’s been running since before I was born, but what does that have to do with anything? Its not like it MATTERS who I vote for, Obama said he would do all the stuff he said he was gonna do last election, and that other guy drives a car! I mean its all the same except when its not and its not right now, come back and ask me in a couple days, my mind will be made up then, like it is now, but it will be different then different, not now different different.”

The best solution is to vote out the incumbents one dislikes, by finding better candidates to oppose them.

Nice idea Ed, unfortunately, those in power accrue a lot of campaign money. They’ve REALLY got to screw up before voters will turn on them. Especially the ‘low info’ voter.

As for the EC. I’d much prefer that EC votes be apportioned to the candidates, based on their percentage of votes in each state. At least we’d get presidential candidates going to ALL states, rather than the ‘winner takes all’ big states.

I understand the need for the electoral college, but I’ve always found term limits to be a reasonable thing. Lots of state, local and county governments have them. I’ve never understood what makes Congress so special that they shouldn’t have them. I wouldn’t be asking for very stringent limits either. Maybe four or five for a Rep and three for a Senator. If you can’t get what you wanted to do accomplished in ten to eighteen years, then that’s on you. Time to let some fresh blood in, that seat’s not yours, even if people willingly vote for you for forty years. The Senate has seen twenty five Senators in over two hundred years serve more than 35 years, three of them over 45 years and one over 50! To me, that’s a bit absurd. Elected office should not be a career, at least not in the same position.

Obamaphonelady
Obama-will-pay my mortgage, gasoline and food
Union thugs and their minions
Relatives of union thugs and minions
Federal looters on the dole, at high salaries and bennies
Gov’t contract related looters
Do-gooder-creeps, who hardly ever do any good
Politicians and their ‘dependents’
Very rich Wall Street, Finance and Hollywood critters
The rest of the fools who believe all the ones above tell them.
American Idol, Kardashians, Dancing with the Stars and trailer hicks.

“What form of gov’t is the US” Duh
“The Bill of Rights is” Duh
“How big is the US Constitution” Duh
“Who is the current VP of the USA?” Duh
Etc. Duh, duh, duh

Don’t people understand that it is the electoral college that protects them from voter fraud in Chicago and other major metro areas from corrupting their state’s vote instead of just the vote of the state they are in? Do rural areas want to get in a voter fraud race with these shameless abusers of democracy?

I have never understood this logic of saying something is wrong because most people want Term Limits yet vote for the incumbent. Congressional Districts are for the most part stacked in favor of one party or the other. Most people have a political ideology and vote for the candidate who comes closest to that. Getting rid of an incumbent is not more important than ideology for any one vote. If the party you favor keeps putting up the same person you are pretty much forced to vote for that person if they are of your party and you vote.

The best solution is to vote out the incumbents one dislikes, by finding better candidates to oppose them.

The best solution, given the fact that either party will back an incumbent unless there is a major scandal, is Term Limits as there is almost no hope any other way. Even with a “better” candidate there is little hope of beating an incumbent as the incumbent has an infrastructure in place at the state level of the party built over years which is based on loyalty and not quality of the candidate. The is especially true of the Senate.

In addition to banging your head, how about picking a hill and fighting for conservatism? You have a pretty good outlet here at Hot Gas to take the fight to Obama not just in terms of grassroots readership, but plenty of elected official types looking in as well that you could hold naccountable.

No! That. Is the one thing that keeps three or four states from electing the president. What we need is an end to the winner take all approach. That lets the large urban centers in states drive the whole allocation of electoral votes. Apportion the electors by congressional district as the system was initially intended to do.

This has been a relatively stable level for at least since the 2000 election, but it’s based on almost nothing else. What exactly is the problem with forcing a state-by-state approach that has worked well, with two (possible) exceptions, every four years since 1792? It allows states to have some influence on federal government, especially lower-population states that would otherwise get overwhelmed by the large coastal states in national elections. If they were this dissatisfied with the results the last time, why did they bother to re-elect the man who won the presidential election in that cycle?

Allow me to channel your average lieberal to answer that:

Because we demand rule in perpetuity, you stupid raaaaacist wingnut. If we had direct Presidential elections, we wouldn’t need to spend a lot of fuel money to bus our voters from Chicago to Racine, Beloit and Milwaukee.

These are the same people that have complained about their taxes having gone up after the president blatantly lied to Americans, yet if given a chance to vote for him again tomorrow, they would once again re-elect Obama.

What exactly is the problem with forcing a state-by-state approach that has worked well, with two (possible) exceptions, every four years since 1792? It allows states to have some influence on federal government, especially lower-population states that would otherwise get overwhelmed by the large coastal states in national elections.

What we need is an end to the winner take all approach. That lets the large urban centers in states drive the whole allocation of electoral votes.

AZfederalist on January 18, 2013 at 12:23 PM

This is the answer to the Ed’s question. People who want to end the Electoral College are generally those who live in a state that is heavily in the tank for the other side (like Conservatives in Oregon) who are tired of knowing before they ever vote that their vote won’t count.

I agree that giving each candidate the vote that they won from each congressional district is a better system. That would let places like Eastern Oregon actually have a chance to vote rather than having Multnomah County dictate every election.

1. We are a majority society of parasites. Moochers, takers, neer-do-wells, etc. The Obamaphone lady is the norm. Sandra Fluke and her demand that “somebody” has to pay for her contraception. Julia and her womb to tomb dependence on government entitlement programs. Dems paid off these filthy worthless people. They vowed not to cut entitlement programs. They forced religious institutions to pay for the slut’s birth control. They promised gays that they’d steamroll those clingers in a second term. They vowed amnesty for illegals. In short they bought off the parasites and are trying to soak the productive to pay for it all.

2. Romney made a tactical mistake by not going out after the outrageous claims that were being made. He stuck with the economy when the greedy stupid people were being convinced that the GOP wanted to ban all abortions.

3. The MSM is nothing more than an arm of the Democrat party. Many many examples but the one that sticks with me the most is Candy Crowley putting down bag of pork rinds long enough to tag team attack Romney during her stint as “moderator” during the second debate.

5. There was a faction of so-called conservatives in a snit that their guy didn’t win the primaries so they refused to support the GOP’s nominee. They are a subset of parasites- crybaby selfish morons.

Also, people who think that the electors should be divvied up proportionately in a state (a la Maine and Nebraska) should not be allowed to vote.

CycloneCDB on January 18, 2013 at 12:17 PM

Please explain why you think this to be the case.

The fact is that the winner take all approach allows the dems to cheat in a few large urban centers in order to win the entire state. If the votes are apportioned according to congressional district (which is the way that the number of electors are allocated to each state), then it makes the dems have to cheat in more congressional districts in order to have a significant impact. As it is, a few large urban centers, like Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. drive all of the electoral votes for their states to the democrat. All that is needed then for the democrats is to engage in large scale vote fraud in those few urban centers to drive the state popular vote to swamp out the rest of the state.

No to term limits. Yes to making Senators appointments so that they represent the states instead of that portion of the state that holds their views on issues. It is a travesty that Missouri has to endure another six years of Claire McCaskill because an idiot fundamentalist jerk refused to step aside after saying stupid stuff about rape.

The fact of the matter is that over 50% of the population is now on government handouts of some kind. We’re over 23% REAL unemployment which of course includes those underemployed. This will only get higher over the next 4 years.

The game is over folks. Low Information Voter is control of this country now and they want full blown socialism to be our new form of government.

The best solution is to vote out the incumbents one dislikes, by finding better candidates to oppose them.

Yeah, because I’ll decide to vote for a Democrat because the Republican incumbent refuses to step aside.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The problem isn’t one party keeping a Congressional seat in perpetuity. The problem is one person keeping that seat for so long they lose touch with why they went there to begin with. It’s like Pelosi’s seat. I wouldn’t care another Democrat be elected in that district because we all know that’s what would happen. But no one should have that much power and influence due to the years they’ve been able to outspend their opponent. They get so far out of touch it’s not even funny.

And the Senate? Repeal the 17th Amendment. We have no business directly electing Senators in the first place.

Heh, but gun and healthcare records are ok…the ACLU is as hypocritical as any leftard. May they all combust, spontaneously, for hypocrisy.

Schadenfreude on January 18, 2013 at 12:33 PM

Stop the voter fraud. The PA voter ID law was passed last year, and they managed to put it on hold till after November. Supposedly it will be in effect for 2014, but this administration will no doubt work hard to make sure they can still cheat in the mid-terms.

The fact is that the winner take all approach allows the dems to cheat in a few large urban centers in order to win the entire state. If the votes are apportioned according to congressional district (which is the way that the number of electors are allocated to each state), then it makes the dems have to cheat in more congressional districts in order to have a significant impact. As it is, a few large urban centers, like Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. drive all of the electoral votes for their states to the democrat. All that is needed then for the democrats is to engage in large scale vote fraud in those few urban centers to drive the state popular vote to swamp out the rest of the state.

AZfederalist on January 18, 2013 at 12:35 PM

The winner take all aspect makes it so you have to play to the Bitter ClingersTM in Western Pennsylvania to get the votes of the NBP Party in Philly. You can’t stray too far to either side.

In your scenario, Barky plays exclusively to the inner cities, academics, and labor unions and probably cobbles together enough of the vote without ever having to consider the needs or desires of the farmer in rural Georgia.

For every good shift you see (getting the Western PA votes we miss out on now) there is bad (losing the Atlanta votes in Georgia). It will allow encourage further Balkanization of the electorate.

What exactly is the problem with forcing a state-by-state approach that has worked well, with two (possible) exceptions, every four years since 1792?

I’m not going to look back and analyze how effective the EC has been over the centuries. But I think everyone here can agree that the EC has failed in the last two elections in doing what I learned in school to be it’s primary function: protecting the electorate from itself. The EC is there to make sure “George Washington” is president instead of some amateur who can give a good speech. Because lets face it, the Founding Fathers were right not to trust to People with something as important as electing the President of the United States. But since the EC is failing to perform its function, I see no reason to keep it any longer.

Also, people who think that the electors should be divvied up proportionately in a state (a la Maine and Nebraska) should not be allowed to vote.

CycloneCDB on January 18, 2013 at 12:17 PM

Well that was quite an amazing argument you made there. Oh wise one, please explain to me why I should not be allowed to vote, because I do believe in your dreaded proportional allotment of electoral votes.

Or is the depth of your argument one of “cuz I said so”? Will you next yell for mom and tell her we keep looking at you?

Put forth a cogent argument as to why proportional allotment is such a horrible idea that people should be disenfranchised of their vote to even consider it.

I’m for term limits. I don’t want Congress critters thinking they have lifetime sinecure. Once they get inside the Beltway they get wowed by the perks and privileges and never want to turn back. Just remember how outraged Orin Hatch in Utah felt that he was ever even challenged!! And the pols (on both sides) thought it absolutely outrageous that Dick Lugar was decked, and then he sour-mouthed the electorate repeatedly for weeks after he lost. They become arrogant and feeled entitled to never having to club or say they’re sorry for screwing things up.

As for the EC, I’m for it with a twist to give proportional representation from the voting results rather than winner-take-all. EC is too important to counteract the blue coastal states east and west.

Funny that you still insist on believing that he actually did. He won by 3.8 million votes you say… At which I point out at least 500,000 of those votes from California alone are fraudulent. Now multiple that by 50… link in nic…

Not saying that following Nebraska is what all states should do, but I really do feel more empowered with my vote in the state.

My vote for President counts in 2 different ways. I get to vote directly for 1 EV for the President in my congressional district. My vote for this EV has much more influence then it does when counted toward the 2 EVs awarded based on the state-wide popular vote.

This also allows us to counteract the consistent march toward liberalism of Omaha, that has been witnessed in every other major city in the US. Moochers congregate in cities, as it is much easier to be taken care of by the government in a large population center.

We also have term limits in our State house in Nebraska. No one can serve more than 2 consecutive terms before having to sit out at least 1 term. This seems reasonable. The downside is that good leaders get forced out after 8 years, but if they are that great, they can run again after taking 4 off.

If it wouldn’t have been for term limits in the state legislature, we may not have Deb Fischer serving in the Senate to replace Ben Nelson. Since she was being term limited out of office, she decided to make a go of it. Let’s call it a secondary benefit to term limits at the local level. It gets us a larger pool of experienced candidates for higher office.

You certainly seem agitated. I think this thread is about America. Don’t let your palpable panic drive you off topic.

DarkCurrent on January 18, 2013 at 12:55 PM

I’m as calm as can be and never in a panic, because I don’t have to be. I took care of things before they got out of hand.

Your assumed subtly is exposed nakid. Your sarcasm at “America is exceptional” didn’t go unnoticed. We know who you are and what you meant. You will never be clothed again. You are a propagandist for China and can stay there. Make sure they become a free country.

It doesnt make any sense. I work with a guy who voted Obama in the last two elections. After the payroll tax expired, he started talking about taxes in general, saying it isnt fair that successful people should pay more. He then went on to rant about social security, saying its not fair to pay into something that will not be there when he retires. SO WHY VOTE OBAMA THEN!?? Frigging morons!

Apportion the electors by congressional district as the system was initially intended to do.

AZfederalist on January 18, 2013 at 12:23 PM

Though I agree with the approach, let’s not misunderstand history. The EC was intended to weight the vote of each state. It had nothing to do with precincts or districts, and everything to do with being a federal system. The states are supposed to be sovereign, and the federal government is supposed to represent them.

Your sarcasm at “America is exceptional” didn’t go unnoticed. We know who you are and what you meant. You will never be clothed again. You are a propagandist for China and can stay there. Make sure they become a free country.